


can stay the night

by salthien



Series: never enough [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, OC male miqo'te WoL, Porn with Feelings, Trans Character, Trans NPC, g'raha is trans you can pry this headcanon from my gay little hands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-01 11:10:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20814164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salthien/pseuds/salthien
Summary: The dance of intimacy is one that is long-foreign to the vaunted Crystal Exarch - but the Warrior of Light is all too eager to remind him of the steps.





	can stay the night

**Author's Note:**

> somewhat-concurrent to [“oh, grant that i”](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20672531) \- what the Warrior and the Exarch do behind closed doors prior to the end of their conversation. Context not required for reading this, but hey, it's more WoLExarch content!
> 
> my WoL OC, E'salih Goldenbough, looks like [this](https://i.imgur.com/N7RCMx6.png)! except he has a beard. goddamn character creator not letting me give my boy some scruff.
> 
> g’raha is trans, and this fic uses standard anatomical language to refer to bits.

There’s something about the act of _ being carried _that quiets and soothes the parts of him that tend towards overthinking - or perhaps it’s just the Warrior’s presence, so sure of his strength as he uses one hip to push open the second door past the Umbilicus with G’raha’s legs still holding fast about his waist. G’raha leads only in spirit, offering little more than a few words of guidance and the press of fond kisses to what he can reach of Salih’s face.

His bed - impeccably made, last used far before Salih’s arrival on the First - is the clear target. Thankfully Salih spares no attention for the cluttered desks and piles of books that have long since escaped G’raha’s _ proper _ study, his life as a historian-turned-savior having long spilled into every space he occupies. His embarrassment at the disheveled room is cowed by the fact that the product _ of _ said life of research still has one arm fast around his lower back - G’raha can’t bring himself to regret his dedication in the slightest.

Once G’raha is settled onto the bed, Salih takes an immediate place at his side close enough that they are still pressed together at the hip. G’raha is only passingly disappointed in the loss of hip-to-shoulder contact; the distance affords him, at the very least, a chance to collect his thoughts without the direct distraction of the furnace that is the Warrior’s body heat.

“Rather large, for just you.” The comment, too, drags him from the stupor he’d been put in by the journey from the Ocular; Salih smooths one hand out over the bedspread, apparently appraising it. “I seem to recall you preferring to curl up anywhere _ but _a proper bed.”

He had, hadn’t he? The memories are so dim as to almost be nonexistent - only the faintest memory of backaches from sleeping beneath tree boughs and in dusty library corners - and he chuckles gently, reaching to capture that splayed hand in his own and lace their fingers together.

“T’was not my choice to bring it here, but Lyna’s - on the insistence that I rest more often and not risk, and I quote, ‘keeling over and taking the Tower with me.’” There’s a beat as he registers the anecdote as not _ entirely _appropriate, given recent events, and he hastily continues as soon as the realization is made. “I have not made use of it as much as she would prefer. But it is comfortable for light reading.”

“Light reading, hmm?” One of Salih’s brows lifts in a caricature of curiosity, the picture of innocence - but the look is entirely belied when the hand not threaded with G’raha’s plants itself atop his thigh. “Is that all?” 

Sheer surprise takes him at the implication, though by all rights it shouldn’t - his body merely choosing _ now _ of all moments to remind him of how touch-starved he truly is, unused to such boldness. He cannot help the sharp inhale he makes. Not to be _ entirely _ outdone by the Warrior, though, an ear twists and his face scrunches in feigned thought as he recovers.

“Should _ you _ have any ideas as to _ other _ uses, by all means-” He lifts their joined hands to his lips, meets Salih’s gaze with lidded eyes and hopes he does not look as ridiculous as he _ thinks _he does, like something out of a trite romance novel. “Enlighten me.”

“_G’raha Tia! _ ” Salih’s scandalized tone is entirely for show, given the way he dissolves into laughter afterwards. His laughter falls in-step with the dissolution of G’raha’s momentary bravado into his own giggle fit. _ Oh _ , how he had missed this, the feeling that swells to new heights in his chest as Salih kisses him once more, and he can _ feel _the man smile against his lips.

So swept up in it is he that he does not notice the happy tears that collect at the corners of his eyes until Salih makes note of them as they separate, his expression sliding partway into concern.

“Are you alright? You’re-” Salih starts, and G’raha blinks once, twice - indeed, his vision swims when his eyes open to meet Salih’s. He hums, a fond little noise, and lifts the crystal hand to wipe the worst of the tears away.

“I’m alright.” _ Alright _ is an understatement - he’s never felt lighter. “Truly. I simply… A part of me still struggles to believe you are _ here _ . That _ I _ am here - that I should be so lucky.” He shakes his head. “‘Tis not something I had dared to even dream of.”

“I am _ very _real, I promise you.” Salih sneaks another kiss to the crystal lining his cheek, punctuating the reassurance with action. “But mayhap you need a little more evidence?”

“I think I should like that.”

Then there are hands at his shoulders, warm even through the layers of his robe, bearing him backwards onto the mattress; a brief shuffle of limbs sees him laid out flat atop the bedspread, thighs bracketed by Salih’s knees as he’s kissed breathless. He can feel one exploratory hand at his chest dip lower, seeking out - something, though with the teeth and tongue at his lower lip it takes G’raha some puzzling to connect the dots.

“Here-- here, let me.” G’raha noses against Salih’s cheek, pausing the kiss to fumble with the disguised clasps at his shoulders and waist, the clink of brass jewelry joining the gentle shuffle of cloth as he disrobes.

“Bit of a nightmare, this. Handsome, though.” Salih offers, slipping one hand beneath the red draping to help G’raha lift it up and off.

“If I may speak to my own defense-” G’raha starts; deciding that a wrinkled robe is the smallest price to pay for one less distraction, he discards both cloth and jewelry off the side of the mattress without a second thought. “I’ve never had to remove it lying flat on my back. Nevermind with someone else _ atop _me.”

“Mm. First time for everything.” 

G’raha is valiant in his efforts to withhold a laugh at Salih’s distraction, his struggle to unwind the brass from G’raha’s waist and the pale cloth alongside it. He does not struggle long - less than a measure before he feels the clasps _ un _clasp in the Warrior’s hands, the weight of the piece lifted from him with an almost triumphant air. All that remains is the black robe beneath, and it occurs to G’raha that it is the most he’s ever been disrobed in the presence of another soul in nigh on a hundred years. The thought doesn’t deter him - but it sets his heart to racing nonetheless.

“I see you’ve kept your fondness for longboots.” He observes as Salih strips him of his sandals. The quip earns him yet another laugh.

“Did you expect otherwise?” _ Thump, thump _ go his shoes, the next garment in the growing bedside pile - Salih straightens by a few degrees, thumbing at the clasps of his own boots. “I seem to recall you _ enjoying _ how my legs looked in these, but if I’m wrong…”

“Oh, I am _ hardly _ complaining - I simply think they’d look better _ without _.”

His boldness is rewarded in short order in an opportunity to help Salih disrobe, boots tugged haphazardly from his legs with far less grace than the careful disrobing G’raha himself had been offered. If Salih minds the lack of care he is _ exceedingly _good at hiding it, and even rewards G’raha further by pulling his tunic over his head and off, leaving him in thin leather breeches and little else.

Wicked white, G’raha’s imagination had not embellished in the _ least _.

Caught red handed in his slack-jawed admiration of the Warrior’s _ warrior _ physique, Salih notes the look faster than G’raha can school it back into something more measured. With no small amount of satisfaction he cages G’raha between his arms once more, breath gusting along his jawline. G’raha wills his heart to stop fluttering like a trapped bird - a feat not easily managed as lips near his ear.

“Still need convincing?”

“Perhaps.”

“Now there’s the Raha I remember.”

It’s almost bittersweet, how easily he’s reminded of of the yawning divide between them, the chasm that their diverging timelines had created - where G’raha taking his leave had been a relatively fresh ache by Salih’s standards, it was an old wound by the Exarch’s measure, only recently salved and healed by the Warrior’s presence. The reminder of the scant few years Salih had spent without him and the toll it must have taken is almost enough to pull him from the moment.

He is _ not _pulled from the moment, thankfully, because Salih centers his attention, allows him no thought beyond the hand that hikes up the robe from thigh to shoulder and the lips that are now pressing kisses down his throat. A soft sound encourages those lips further, to draw marks to the surface of his skin between rivulets of crystal.

It had been a _ century_. G’raha hadn’t been touched by anyone save himself in that long - and even his interest in _ that _had waned considerably with his many years. Yet Salih seems to unlock it within him, brings forth old needs with startling clarity. It’s more than he’s used to, and his reactions all but spell it out. Apparently satisfied with the level of dishevelment he’s achieved - the robe now little more than a rumpled band of cloth around G’raha shoulders - Salih’s hand drops to G’raha’s hips, the waistband of the dark underthings he wears. G’raha sucks in a breath, holds it in anticipation - and then the hand slides lower still, experimentally slow. The flat of Salih’s fingers drag along him through his smallclothes and G’raha makes a strange sound in his throat as he looses that breath, halting and sudden.

“That alright?” The question is near immediate, Salih’s attention never leaving G’raha’s face - he can’t nod fast enough. The single touch is enough to set him alight, to mourn the loss of it for even a moment.

“M-_ more _ than alright.” He’s not sure he _ could _ ask Salih to stop, his interest in doing so nonexistent. To his credit, Salih hesitates no further, intent on watching G’raha’s expression as he presses paired fingers along him a second time, then a third - dragging slow circles against his clit through the single layer of fabric that remains to him. It’s enough to draw a _ proper _moan from G’raha on his next breath out, eyes falling closed as his chin tips up.

The touches are ceaseless, now that Salih has been granted leave to do as he pleases - and _ pleasing _ seems his chief priority. Purposefully maddening attention is given in kisses down the plane of his chest, lips closing around a nipple. G’raha arches into the sensation, instinct guiding him where inexperience renders the feeling wholly unfamiliar. Moment by moment Salih reintroduces him to a body he had not considered truly _ his _in decades.

It’s _ far _ too much at once, but G’raha has no designs on willing its end_. _Salih continues in that self-imposed pilgrimage downwards, kisses soft and open-mouthed at the line between flesh and crystal. The teasing touches between his legs are present all the while, save for when those fingers hook beneath the waistband of his shorts and tug them down. G’raha already feels taut as a bowstring between the hands and lips that work him over - and now bared to them entirely save the loose black cloth hiked up around his shoulders, more of an annoyance than proper clothing by now. As Salih’s hands offer momentary respite, focused as he is on tugging the smallclothes down G’raha’s thighs, G’raha takes the chance afforded to him and divests himself of the garment, pulling it up and off in one swift motion. He comes out of shucking the last of the cloth to the floor to find Salih staring at him.

“The crystal isn’t too jarring, I hope?” He is suddenly _ very _ aware of each facet where skin meets crystal, anxiety vying with arousal in the pit of his stomach as he hoping selfishly that he has not derailed the evening completely by revealing himself. G’raha had allowed none - not Spagyrics, nor Lyna nor _ any _ in his tenure as Exarch - to see how far the Tower’s influence had spread. None, save one, who now watches him with all the reverence of a man watching the sun rise.

“You are as beautiful as the day you made your grand entrance in the Find.”

“You flatter me.”

“‘Tis not flattery if it’s true. Would I lie to you, Raha?”

There, the return of gentle fingers against him turns his retort into another sharp gasp, a reflexive jerk of his hips upward into that touch.

“N-no, I have no - _ ah_\- reason to- be-_lieeeve-” _Speech is becoming a nigh-impossible task with each stroke, his hips and thighs twitching inward against each movement against him. Despite his utter faith in Salih, embarrassment wins out over affection. The crystalline arm lifts quickly to shield his eyes, his face. It’s a halfhearted effort to hide the worst of it from Salih - and one that immediately backfires as gentle fingers wrap around his wrist not a moment later.

“Let me see your face? Please?”

There is no amusement in his tone this time, only a honey-sweet fondness that makes G’raha’s heart ache in the best of ways. Instead of voicing his response, a long pause precedes a nod, chin dipping towards his chest. He is unused to being watched; spending one-hundred years beneath the cover of his hood has done little for his physical self confidence. But he is won over by affection, by the memory of the longing look in the Warrior’s eyes, and the hand reaches up, up above his head instead. He pulls a pillow down from near the wooden headboard just in time for those searching fingers to start back up.

He’s all but lost in it. Each touch seems magnified tenfold by years of going without. His ears long pinned against his skull, he holds to Salih as a lifeline - the crystal hand threads into long, dark hair as the Spoken one drifts bicep to shoulder, unable to decide which is most satisfying to the touch.

There are lips at the inside of his thigh and his thoughts grow more and more fragmented - _ please, more, don’t stop_. Though he’d spent long nights near the start of his hundred year journey dreaming of this, there is no comparison to be drawn. This is _ real_. Salih sucks a mark to the surface just above the pulse point in his thigh, and G’raha’s heartbeat roars an incessant rhythm in his ears.

Then that mouth is upon him fully, the Warrior’s tongue circling him _ just so_, and release finds him in one sudden, blinding moment. It crashes through him all at once, so unexpected that he can do nothing to stymie the long, keening sound that tumbles from his lips. 

He comes to the dim realization a few moments later that Salih’s head is still trapped between his thighs. It’s another moment before he has the wherewithal to relax his legs’ grip enough that Salih can surface - looking positively _ bemused_, no less.

“Already?” Salih asks. But speech - any attempt at an explanation - eludes G’raha, suspended in the nigh-unfamiliar haze of afterglow as he is. Thus riding the emotional high of his first sex in a century, he _ laughs_. It’s mostly a noiseless shake of his shoulders, his eyes squeezing shut and one languide hand lifting to wipe the moisture from his eyes. 

In the measures it takes for him to gather himself from his mirth, Salih rises to settle himself atop G’raha once more, elbows planted at either side of crystal-encased shoulders to prop himself up.

“_ You _ didn’t expect it - please, consider how _ I _ must feel.” He finally responds once the laughter settles. “I have not… even had I any interest outside of _ you _ ,” G’raha notes the way Salih’s ears turn forward at the admission, the way his gaze softens by degrees. “My duties as the Crystarium’s steward were not exactly _ conducive _ to this.” At _ this _ he gestures between them, then lets his hand meander up the line of Salih’s torso; he watches it instead of Salih’s face. “Thus I am… out of practice, as it were. My apolo- _ mmh. _” He isn’t afforded the chance to finish, the tail end of his apology swallowed up by Salih’s mouth against his.

“You needn’t apologize. I daresay it’s a bit of an ego boost, knowing - well.” Salih’s grin is positively impish, ears flicking forward with amusement, and G’raha’s nose scrunches in feigned annoyance. “That you enjoyed yourself so thoroughly.” The words, spoken against his lips as Salih steals another kiss, carry no small measure of fond amusement with the way the Warrior’s earlier fire had been quelled to a smolder by softness. Before G’raha can answer _ decisively _in the affirmative, a frown clouds Salih’s expression just long enough for G’raha to catch it.

“Are _ you _ alright, my-- Salih?” Once more he trips over the wrong word, this time overcorrecting into an all-too-telling slip of the tongue that Salih immediately notes, given how fast the frown morphs into a smile.

“_Yours, _ hm?” G’raha _ cannot _ dwell on how pleased the man’s tone is, lest he lose himself entirely in the throes of overwhelming affection and the remaining mood be lost. He simply cannot. Instead he rolls his eyes, secrets away that eagerness into a corner of his mind to dwell on for bells later, when there aren’t more pressing matters at hand.

“Should you allow me the _ privilege_…” He smiles, skating his hand up to cup Salih’s jaw. “But come now, why the frown?”

“I hardly got to have my fun.” Salih says, and this time it is G’raha’s turn to frown, confused. At times Salih could be impatient, yes - but he had never been a _selfish _lover in the few dim memories that remained to him of the months before his hibernation.

“If you think for a _ moment _that I won’t-”

“Not _ that_.” The laugh that shakes the Warrior can be felt in all the places they connect. Salih does not laugh _ nearly _ enough, in G’raha’s humble opinion. “I mean I hardly got to touch you at all.” He continues, smile turning catlike. “I should like a _ little _more time to re-familiarize myself with my favorite instrument. The sounds you make-”

“Salih, _ please_.” G’raha brings his arm over his face once more, fighting the smile that threatens at the corners of his lips. “Let an old man keep the last of his dignity!”

“Then you tell me what’s so undignified about being found _ attractive_. Go on! I’ll wait.” He can feel the weight upon him shift as Salih settles back on his haunches, still perched above G’raha’s hips; he chances a peek from below the smooth crystal forearm.

“You spoil me with your affections.” At last he can no longer keep the smile from his lips, and Salih smiles to match him.

“You deserve to be spoiled, _ my Raha_.” Oh, but _ that _ is downright criminal - the way his voice drops, the emphasis he places so possessively on the name. The heat that pools low in his stomach demands attention, apparently unsatisfied with coming just _ once. _And it is attention that Salih seems all too prepared to give, as his hand skates down the trail of short-cropped fur below G’raha’s navel once more. It’s a wordless question he follows up with a quiet, “May I?”

“As though you even _ need _to ask.” Is G’raha’s reply, once more lifting his Spoken hand to Salih’s face. The gesture is met with a nuzzle, his thumb following the line of the man’s cheekbone and the curved scar just above. “Of course.”

_ Slightly _ more prepared for the flood of feeling this time, G’raha still shudders at the first press of soft lips to his center, the tongue that laves over the length of him in one arduously slow motion. He lets a harsh breath out, hand finding purchase once more among dark locks, but he does not _ convulse _as he had before. Small victories, he thinks.

The heavens wheel in the world beyond the glinting walls of Allag’s greatest invention; time itself loses meaning for G’raha, the world narrowing to the edges of the bed and no farther. Salih seems intent on taking his time now, tending to G’raha with practiced patience and watching as he methodically pulls G’raha apart with one purposeful touch after another. It is G’raha, this time, who grows impatient enough to roll his hips against the fingers Salih is slowly working into him. Salih hums his assent, presses deeper.

Finding his voice, too, now seems less of an impossible task. Between the soft gasps and pleas Salih wrings from him he offers guidance, praise. “Yes, just like tha_-aat- _ ” “How handsome you are - _ mmh _ \- how lucky I am…” “You are _ incredible_, you know that?” He speaks all this and more, a font of praise and adoration now that his embarrassment has long since faded. At first he does it purely out of instinctual desire to laud praise upon the man, but in so doing he realizes Salih might be enjoying it more than G’raha himself is.

G’raha murmurs another “Incredible-” under his breath and Salih moans against him, mismatched gaze flickering shut. Unprepared for the way it vibrates through the very center of him, the rest of his words are bitten off by another soft whine high in the back of his throat, bucking up against the feeling. 

“Again, Salih - again, please-” Another wordless sound from the man buried between his thighs joins a curl of Salih’s fingers within him, against a spot that drags a ragged, needy cry from G’raha. His voice is a feedback loop. The less articulate he grows, the more fervent Salih is in his movements against him, brows furrowed in concentration. Dimly, G’raha is aware of the agitated sway of Salih’s tail behind him, the occasional twitch of ears pinned against dark hair - and then Salih jostles his thighs, an all-too-telling change of posture to accommodate the growing discomfort in his breeches. Were it not for the near-bruising grip Salih keeps on his hip, anchoring G’raha to himself and the bed, he knows the temptation to roll over and tend to the Warrior _ properly _ would be overwhelming.

The second climax is easier to anticipate than the first, heat coiling unbearably low in his stomach; crystal fingers clutch at Salih’s hair, the other hand white-knuckled in its grip of the pillow beneath his head.

“I-I - mmh - _ Salih_, there, _ there, please- _”

Salih answers his call, meets his pleas with a firm curl of his fingers and another rough sound rising from his throat and _ into _him. G’raha is undone in one fell swoop, back bowing off the mattress as he’s unfolded beneath that loving touch. He can properly appreciate it this time too, the way it builds to a stunning, white-hot peak at his very core and spills outwards to suffuse him in warmth. He trembles, legs pressed together and lips parted reverently around the shape of Salih’s name.

“_Twelve_, Raha-” Salih’s breathing is ragged as he surfaces, all too ready to offer a bruising kiss as counterpoint to the haze of afterglow that suffuses G’raha. “I’m never-” Another kiss. “Going to want-” Yet another, along his jaw. “To leave this room.”

“Then don’t,” Is G’raha’s equally breathy reply, nosing against Salih’s cheek. “Not tonight. I want you for myself.”

“You have me.” Instead of further teasing inquiries as to _ ownership_, to have Salih so freely give himself over - it is the spark that kindles an entirely different fire in G’raha.

Boneless as he feels, the flame that fuels him now is more than enough to help him muster the strength to lift both palms to Salih’s shoulders, pressing insistently upwards. It only takes as long as Salih puzzling out what he _ wants _ for him to wordlessly comply, moving off of G’raha to settle beside him, and for G’raha to promptly roll over _ onto _him, seated atop Salih’s still-clothed hips.

Being doted upon was, from the start, a sensation entirely new to him. Having that singular attention focused upon him had been his undoing - but this? The Warrior of Light beneath him, lips kiss-bitten and pupils blown wide, bared to he and only he? _ This _he will not shy from in the slightest. If there is aught in this world he is sure of, it is his utter confidence in adoring the man who lies prone below him, and he will set to the task with all the ardor and care it deserves.

“How selfless you are.” It’s as though a switch has been flipped in him, with how easily the words come to him now. He presses himself against the tented fabric of Salih’s trousers, sets both hands to the toned muscle of his stomach just in time to feel a groan ripple through him. “Ignoring yourself that you might give over your full attention to me.” Another roll of his hips, letting heat bleed through the layer of cloth as the motion is answered with a squeeze of Salih’s fingers at his thighs.

“I would see your patience rewarded… If you would have me.”

The question doesn’t need to be asked, G’raha knows. It’s more for his own sake - selfish, _ far _too selfish, too enamored with watching the Warrior’s expression go fond through the haze of lust.

“I would - _ Twelve_, I would, Raha. Anything you want - please.”

He needs no more encouragement than that, than the gentle rise of Salih’s hips below his, and he lifts himself off momentarily to slide his fingers beneath the waistband of those pants. Dragging them down and off inch by inch, he discovers - to further, almost lecherous delight - that his Warrior has foregone smallclothes. As hasty as he _ wants _to be, he ensures that the pants at least leave the man in one piece before they are tossed with abandon as far from the bed as G’raha cares to muster.

“Let me—” As G’raha tosses the garment, Salih adjusts his posture again, sitting up enough that he can tuck his legs beneath him and afford G’raha a lap to sit upon - an invitation G’raha wastes no time in taking full advantage of, seating himself along the line of Salih’s cock. Rather than take him in as he settles, G’raha chances another experimental rock against him, sliding himself along that heat. He is well-rewarded with a soft, needy sound from the man beneath him and lips seeking out his own once more.

“Raha…”

“My warrior?” He flicks an ear, feigning ignorance even as he shifts again. A measure, perhaps, of teasing - he cannot pass up on this chance to see his Warrior undone beneath him. Salih’s head falls to his shoulder, and G’raha can feel the halting movement Salih makes beneath him, no doubt resisting the instinct to do much more.

“_Please_, Raha.”

“For you, anything.” Still sensitive from two climaxes worth of attention to himself, any discomfort still pales in comparison to the deep satisfaction of that first press inward, guided by his Spoken hand. He swallows thickly, arches against the callused hand roaming his back to settle at the base of his spine. The silver-flecked fur of his tail curls its way ‘round Salih’s forearm as G’raha presses him deeper, haltingly lowers himself ilm by ilm till his thighs meet hips and Salih bottoms out within him. The expression that graces the man’s face - gaze lidded beneath heavy lashes, brows knitted, lips parted around heavy breaths - is one G’raha wants to memorize, to learn by heart that he might carry it with him always.

“You’re alright? Not too much?” Salih asks, the clipped questions accompanying a shallow roll of himself against G’raha. _ There _ is the impatience he had searched for, bordering on desperation, that is _ far _ too endearing for his own good.

“Completely - do as you wish.” It’s hard for G’raha to keep the shake from his voice, but the reassurance is all Salih needs to cage him in strong arms and find a rhythm that leaves G’raha sighing and melting into his grip.

With G’raha poised in his lap, Salih’s movements are less proper thrusts and more insistent rolls of his hips up and against him; G’raha meets each movement with one of his own, reveling in the sensation of being filled by more than just a searching tongue or fingers. 

Salih’s hand skates up and across G’raha’s chest and shoulder, deft bowman’s fingers made clumsy by arousal searching for the braid that rests at his nape. They chase the length of it till they find the tie holding it together and pull it free, then card through it haphazardly once, twice, to free the silvery ends from their bindings. Fondness wells in G’raha’s chest at the motion - until Salih uses the new grip to his advantage and tugs G’raha’s head back. Then there are lips and teeth at his neck, worrying at the line of soft skin just below his jaw, and G’raha groans his approval.

For all his prior desperation, Salih’s stamina is nothing short of impressive. Where G’raha had expected wild abandon, to be taken insistently and be _ glad _ for it, Salih is gentle to the last. For one long moment he slows his pace, meeting G’raha for a languid kiss that nearly has G’raha weak-kneed with warm affection. Unable to hide the love-drunk look he’s sure he sports as they separate, he is further endeared by the fact that his Warrior’s expression nearly mirrors his own. G’raha feels suspended in the moment, wants to memorize the shape of the man’s eyes, the curve of his lips from where they’d been forgotten in his long vigil.

Then the grip on his thighs moves, slides upward to his hips instead, and before he can properly react Salih lifts him almost completely off his lap only to drag him back down against yet another upstroke. Salih’s aim is off, not quite close enough to have G’raha seeing stars. But the sensation of being _ filled _so suddenly, the teeth set against his shoulder as he comes back down and the throaty groan of Salih’s that accompanies it - it’s enough to make G’raha’s breath catch, his grip on the man’s shoulders going white-knuckled.

His Warrior _ does _ find it eventually, shifts his hips and searches for that achingly perfect angle untill one thrust garners a sharp inhale from G’raha, an immediate press of his thighs inward to keep himself _ just there _. Salih seems to take the hint, grinds himself against where G’raha has trapped him, and G’raha lets out another long, breathy sound from high in his throat.

“Raha— _ nnh- _won’t last long if you do that—”

Suddenly faced with the prospect of _ that _ \- of Salih claiming him in flesh as he had so thoroughly in spirit - it kindles that selfish possessiveness, that _ need _to be possessed, in G’raha again. He hilts Salih again, roughly, as if the damp sound of flesh on flesh is enough on its own to communicate his intent.

“Then let go. I want-” No - he does not want. Want is not _ enough_. G’raha groans, his turn to let his mouth find the column of Salih’s neck. “_Need _ to feel you.”

An answering moan from Salih is all the assent G’raha needs to stay right where he is, Salih’s motions losing all semblance of rhythm as he chases his release. G’raha tenses, murmurs half-formed words of encouragement against the line of his jaw.

“Raha, _ Raha_— Ra-_ha_—”

G’raha has heard his name spoken more times in the last week than in a century prior, but this - the way his Warrior’s voice breaks on the final syllable, the reverence as if the long-lost appellation is more prayer than name - is far and away G’raha’s favorite. Salih’s grasp on him goes iron-tight as his hips still, spilling himself into G’raha. The sensation is wholly unfamiliar, almost enough to be unpleasant were it not for the fact that it is _ his Warrior_, and he works the last of Salih’s climax from him with gentle rolls of his hips until the man is shuddering beneath him.

It is only as G’raha lifts himself, slowly but surely, from Salih’s length that he realizes just how close he’d gotten to coming alongside him. The sudden lack of pressure from within leaves him feeling almost _ bereft _. Yet Salih - still mired in the warmth of post-coital bliss - is nothing if not observant. His brows knit, gaze lifting to G’raha’s still-flushed cheeks. G’raha smiles, tries to ignore the persistent ache between his legs; he will not suffer to demand yet more from Salih so soon after, by his account, a more-than-satisfactory performance.

“You-” It seems full sentences are still lost to Salih, but he plants a gentle hand against G’raha’s core for the third time that evening, and G’raha nearly buckles against it. “-again?”

“I think - I think so-” G’raha offers, but Salih needs no more encouragement than the way his hips shift into the offered hand, his thumb already rubbing circles at G’raha’s clit. It’s a gentler sort of urging this time, G’raha on his knees with his arms ‘round Salih’s shoulders for balance - he hugs Salih to his front and lets his Warrior bring him to a final trembling, unhurried release under sure fingers. He does not tense, his voice not rising above a gentle murmur as the feeling comes to its crescendo - he simply lets his weight rest against the sturdy, unmoving line of Salih’s torso.

All that remains to him in the measures following is a pleasant blankness, the high of release slow-fading into a golden afterglow that has him all but spineless. A feeling that, evidently, his Warrior shares, as he feels himself borne down once more against the mattress, the Warrior’s weight atop him as his head comes to rest beneath G’raha’s chin.

“Mm. Should wash up. Don’t want to ruin your bed.” Are the first words Salih offers once they’ve settled, a beat or two after G’raha’s eyes fall closed. He considers it, weighing the strange, foreign wetness between his legs and the tacky sheen of slow-drying sweat with the sheer comfort of his very own Warrior-of-Light-made-blanket atop him.

“For you, _ my Warrior_, I would ruin a thousand thousand beds.” That earns him a lazy chuckle, a scratch of blunted fingernails across his crystal shoulder. “That… And I am not certain these old knees could handle standing just yet.”

“That is… something I hadn’t considered.” Salih concedes, that hand now drawing lines at G’raha’s chest, chasing the line of crystal-on-flesh up and down in an idle, thoughtless rhythm. “We’ll table it for now. Not sure I could let you go to get up, either.”

“Then you have me. As long as you like.” Echoing his words from a half-bell prior, G’raha nestles against Salih as close as comfort will allow, lips resting against the soft black fur of one of Salih’s ears. 

_ Forever_, he appends in the safety of his own mind, though he does not doubt that he will say the word proper someday. And from the way the Warrior curls against him, twines his tail with G’raha’s and lets out the fondest sigh G’raha has ever heard in response, the Warrior may not mind _ forever _one bit.

**Author's Note:**

> title is from [Too Much Is Never Enough](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bD6sTDH9Zdc), aka the cornerstone of my still-still-unreleased WoL/Exarch playlist.
> 
> find me at my twitter scream hole [@salthien](http://twitter.com/salthien)!


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